Condoleezza Rice on Energy & Oil

Secretary of State

Develop oil & gas resources, for energy independence

We must not allow the chance to attain energy independence to slip from our grasp. We are blessed with a gift of oil and gas resources here in North America, and we must develop them.
We can develop them sensitively, we can develop them securing our environment, but we must develop them. And we have the ingenuity to develop alternatives sources of energy.

Source: 2012 Republican National Convention speech
, Aug 29, 2012

Strong investment in renewable energy like wind and solar

On the AmericansElect.org energy question, Dr. Rice chose 'A' from the list below, with a relative weighting of 10%:

When you think about America's energy needs, which of the following solutions comes closest to your opinion?

A. Strong investment in renewable energy like wind and solar

B. More drilling than investment in renewables (mix of both solutions)

Kyoto Protocol fatally flawed, but address climate change

The first confrontation with our European allies was climate change. During the 2000 campaign the governor had been clearly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol.

In 2001, the President wrote to four Republican senators who had asked the administration to
clarify its position on limiting greenhouse pollutants. I told the President we needed to change one sentence, which criticized the Kyoto Protocol in the harshest possible terms and suggested we would have nothing to do with it. I wanted to add mitigatin
language saying that even though we could not support the treaty because it was fatally flawed, we would work with our allies to address the problem of climate change. But the President said, "It's too late."

In fairness to the President, I think he
had thought of the letter as addressing a DOMESTIC issue for our Congress. But I knew better. We suffered through this issue over the years: drawing that early line in the sand helped to establish our reputation for "unilateralism." We handled it badly.

Diversify supply to non-carbon-based sources

Q: The issue of the day is the price of oil. And we find ourselves really in a curious position here, where so much money is flowing out of the US and actually into the Middle East because obviously that is where the oil is. How did we get here?

A: Well, we need a comprehensive energy policy, and President Bush has been talking about a comprehensive energy policy practically since the first day that he was elected. It’s very important that we diversify supply. That means that we have to find way
--energy sources that are not carbon based. That’s why alternative sources of energy, new technologies will be very important. We simply have put ourselves into a situation in which it’s hard to break our addiction to oil.
We’re not going to get out of it quickly, I’m afraid, unless--and it’s high time to get started on the diversification of our energy resources.

Source: CNBC interview on Maria Bartiromo show
, May 23, 2008

Increase refining capacity & domestic resources; use nuclear

Q: It seems like many of the same senators who are wanting oil profit taxes on the big oil companies are the same senators who are saying, look, we cannot drill here, and we can’t go to ANWR, and this is off limits, not in my back yard.

A:
It is unfortunate that we continue--while we say that we want to be less addicted to foreign oil, which has been one of the president’s goals--we say we want to be less addicted to foreign oil, but then we say to oil producers, “You have to increase
supply,“ rather than thinking about what we can do at home to increase supply. And of course, the ability to use our domestic resources, our domestic sources of oil would be a very important part of that.
Nuclear energy is another clean technology that we should be using and exploring. We need to increase our refining capacity. It has been a problem for us to be able to refine. And we also need to have exploration at home.

Source: CNBC interview on Maria Bartiromo show
, May 23, 2008

Reducing our reliance on oil; it distorts world politics

If anything has surprised me as Secretary of State, it is the degree to which the kind of search for hydrocarbons is distorting international politics.
That means that the quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil, the better we’re going to be.

Bring to market transformational energy technologies

Addressing climate change requires a sustained effort by all nations over many generations. Developing & bringing to the marketplace transformational energy technologies will be key. To this end, the US has launched 5 important multilateral partnerships: